Felices Vacaciones

We decided to strike whilst the flying iron was hot and headed off to Spain for a week after Christmas.

I think there may have been a slight bit of unspoken trepidation from pretty much everyone I know as to whether I was going to make it on this holiday or not.  I got on the plane with no hysterics however and hardly even a sweaty palm.  Zak was checking on me during take off whereas Sebi chipped in with: 'Does that wing look broken to you?"  I'd like to think he doesn't do it on purpose...but...!

I was determined to get a feel of the 'real Spain' and so we ventured into a fairly untouristy part of Andalucia.  I was pretty good at languages at school and a couple of years ago in Lanzarote, I cheerfully ordered for everyone in Spanish, so just assumed I would sail through it again.  Oh no.  It is a little bit different when nobody at all anywhere speaks any English, and everyone is completely relying on you to get them anything to eat, and an A in GCSE Spanish approximately a thousand years ago doesn't really seem to help at all! Day 1 was painful.  I headed off to the supermarket; got lost in the old town and then couldn't find my way either to the supermarket or back to the hotel.  It didn't help that I stuck out like a sore thumb in my bikini with a playsuit on top whilst the Spaniards were in jumpers, coats and scarves!

I grew in confidence however, and, by about Day 4, I was ordering confidently and not even recoiling in horror any longer if the waiters dared to talk back to me!  It's all well and good practising your phrase in your head and saying it out loud but then for goodness sake don't ask me any questions; I'm done!

We decided to eat out on New Year's Eve as the hotel was fully booked for its Gala Dinner.  As we headed out into the town we noticed that everything was shutting its shutters and everyone was heading off the streets into their houses.  My husband refused to give up however and we walked every inch of pavement in Almunecar looking for food and drink.  Eventually we found a take away selling burgers and chips.  Zak's eyes lit up but my dear husband was unwilling to sacrifice our family's NY meal to a takeaway.  I'm a firm believer of any port in a storm and so quickly ordered food for the four of us.  Stu told me that he wasn't eating take away on New Year's Eve and so I pretended I had only ordered for the kids.  A couple of hours later the cold chips were washed down a treat with Cava in our hotel room after we trudged past everyone in their finery gala-dinnering.  Pure class...

Sebi's OCD tendencies were on clear show as he started a stone collection on the beach. Out of the ten thousand million pebbles on the beach would you believe that both of the boys' favourite stones happened to be the same bloody one? What are the chances? World War 3 kicked off until we accidentally managed to get exhibit A eaten by the sea. When we came back to the beach the next day Sebi suddenly announced he wanted to check that his stone collection was still intact.  We all had our hearts in our mouths but miraculously it was still as it had been - thank goodness.  Another disaster averted.

The journey back was equally as uneventful.  My children have inherited their mother's champagne tastes however, and, when offered burger and chips in Malaga airport demanded to use 'Grandad's special card again to get into the nice lounge with WIFI and free food'.  Sorry Dad.  Thanks for that; we owe you, a lot.  We toasted Grandad's generosity as we sat down in the oasis but I had to laugh when Zak asked if all the other people were allowed in the lounge purely because of Grandad too!

A bit of winter sun and family time did wonders at this time of year.  I now need to wring out my liver and return to the real world of work for a few months before we head off on the birthday jolly.  As Zak said, I'm sure we can use our leftover euros in Muscat! ;-)

Leaving on a jet plane

Having cancelled two holidays over the last two years at a painful personal cost of probably about 10 grand; I decided that it was about time I sorted my life out.

I have had a fear of flying in one form or another for as long as I remember and eleven years ago I tackled it head on with BA's fear of flying course.  It really was like a magic cure and I waltzed to Vegas a few months later without a flicker and the same year flew in a four-seater plane bouncing over clouds down to Devon.  For some reason, with me, it obviously had a shelf-life however, and slowly but surely the anxiety crept, (and then hurtled), back.

We had an amazing time in France this year and in fact are going back next summer. However, I don't want myself, and, even more than that, my family, to be limited on where we go, by only going to places that you can travel to by boat/bus/car/train!

So when Daddy-O started making noises about a big birthday present holiday, I decided that the Caribbean would be more temperate in April than Clacton and so I had better have another shot at the course!

I booked in a couple of months ago for today and then managed to convince my wing-woman that she really wanted to come with me.  Sam is equally as terrified but for completely different reasons.  We decided it was a good opportunity to make a weekend of it, (our husbands go to the Stone Roses together, we go to Gatwick); and got way too excited about heading off to an airport on a train on a rainy day in November.  Sam and I are good at making the best of stuff; we get excited about a half an hour kid-free cup of tea so this was obviously going to be epic.  Well, it would have been if the bloody woman hadn't given up drinking for a month!  There are so many reasons why we get on so brilliantly together but we do love a good drunken night and are dreadful partners in crime...  After two hours on a train together I nearly cracked her but we ended up having a burger in the hotel and then tucked up in our pyjamas at 9pm; me with a bottle of fizz, her with a cuppa; and alternating between watching 'I'm a Celebrity' and watching planes land out of our window.

The morning of the course was done by pilots and the afternoon was by a psychotherapist. I remembered a lot of the technical side of it from last time but it was still good to have a refresh.  When it came to questions, I was bored with how obsessed everybody seemed to be with turbulence.  Interesting then that the only wobble I had on the flight was for about ten seconds when it got a bit bumpy!  Apparently humans aren't meant to fly however and our inner ears can't cope with being jiggled up and down as well as side to side.  My question was straight in regarding the change in pilot procedures after the Germanwings bloke flew a plane into a mountain; no point beating about the bush I guess.  My wing-woman went a little pale and headed quickly for the sarnies and a cuppa.

I was fascinated by the afternoon and I think it was a different person to the last time I did it.  Last time I found out how much safer flying was than being kicked to death by donkey; this time I found out that it is eighteen times safer being on a plane than sitting on your sofa at home!  (Feeling a little anxious right now... ;-)) Also, apparently you are six times more likely to be murdered by a family member than to die in a plane crash.  (Sebi definitely has the most psychopathic stare; luckily, I'm his favourite.)

I quite enjoyed the flight.  It was only forty minutes and it was a slightly fake situation however, so I don't think I am fully cured.  A serious improvement though and no panicking; plus I was SOBER!  I did decide quite definitely that next time I get on a plane it will not be by going through a special scared-people-security with a label around my neck and curious onlookers gawping and pointing whilst a lot of people in hi-vis jackets treat us like delicate cargo.  Also, I would really like to get off the plane somewhere more interesting than Gatwick!

Back to the hotel for a celebratory glass of champagne and a diet coke... (yawn...), then we headed home to share the good news with our loved ones that we could take to the skies once more.  So far, the text to my Dad from the train which said: 'Flying course good. Bahamas?', has been a little bit ignored but with a congratulatory 10% discount from BA I'm sure that he will soon see that it would be rude not to!

Death by 10K

It's okay.  Don't panic.  I'm not really dead dead.  Just a little bit dying right now.  I ran 10K this morning for the third time in my life and I did not enjoy it.  I'm not sure I've ever really enjoyed it but today I found it ridiculously unpleasant.  I think I've realised that 10K is not something that you can just wake up one morning and run without being completely ready.

I did try to be ready, I really did.  Having not run properly for a while I did the Race for Life in July with some of the school mums and sitting around with two bottles of champagne in my belly afterwards I agreed to run a half marathon with them in November.  Easy, I thought to myself.  July to November is a nice long time and I put together a training plan.  I then went to France and drank every day and ate cheese for two weeks.  September came with the craziness of the beginning of term and I was struggling to fit in the running (or struggling to be arsed to do any running!)  Saturday morning runs are out due to Friday nights so that meant that it had to be one night after work.  I began running around Clarence Park after my Monday evening meeting finished at 5pm, building up by half a mile a week.  I've always liked Clarence Park - nice and flat.  This all went very well until about three weeks ago when I pulled a muscle in my calf at 4 miles and stopped.  Bum.  No worries thought I; I continued with personal training and boot camp and thought that the long-distance-running-adrenaline-fairy would carry me through today.

Just before this calf-pull incident; I drunkenly signed up my friend and personal trainer Elena to do this 10K today with me.  She panicked for about five minutes and then embraced it in true Dundjerovic style and set out to smash it for me in my target time of less than an hour.

I realised there was a problem when we started off the first kilometre at a canter when I was expecting a trot.  Jeebus.  Maybe this hour malarky wasn't doable after all.  I was trying to tell Dunders that I was about to die already, five minutes in but I couldn't manage to get the words out.  I tried all sorts of tactics: slow down, try and get stuck behind a fatty, pretend to trip over a dog; but she was taking her job very seriously and kept me going at what I had quickly realised was not at all my pace.

I had described the hill at 4K to Elena as basically the same as Mount Everest and she had told me in no uncertain terms that I was not walking up it.  About halfway up I was most definitely walking up it and no amount of cajoling, shouting and even pushing me seemed to change that.  People were beginning to stare at the obviously fitter less sweaty lady pushing the seriously angry looking more sweaty bird in the back to try and make her go faster.  'She's a bitch' I was telling everybody I could.  Nobody replied.  It is not the best hill for conversation really.

I started running again (having tried to turn around and go home a couple of times) and by the time we hit 5K I knew I would probably finish at least and didn't care how long it took. Elena was still trying to do her job, the job I had set her up for, but I was trying to pant to her that I didn't want her to do the job anymore I just wanted to wallow silently in my own sweaty misery.  She tried everything but I was decidedly grumpy.  She was laughing when I tried to stop running again at about 7K and was telling her to fuck off with one breath but then when somebody came out of their house to cheer us on I was sweetness and light itself with a smile and a wave.  Poor Elena.

I did try to convince her to run on and save herself.  She knows far too many fit PT people who will be looking up her race time after all but she is a good friend and stuck with me and my little trot until the bitter end.  Apparently we are doing it every year from now on.  I reckon I might just stick on some rollerskates next time and tie myself onto her waist.

I have already backed out of the half marathon and am hugely relieved I will not be flogging it around Clarence Park seven times tomorrow evening.  I am now drinking all of my Saturday night champagne and enjoying the simple pleasure of sitting on my sore bum... ;-)

Old Dear

I'm feeling my age today.  I don't think I have ever written that sentence or uttered those words before but I'm sure I will say them again...and again...and again...in the future!

I went into town last night with a bounty of beautiful twenty-something girls from my workplace.  I had a lovely time.  Apart from the twenty minute wait at the bar every time I wanted a drink; that was not okay.  I'm ashamed to say that I was thinking of my own lovely fridge full of champagne that never, ever makes me wait when I visit it.  I was chatting to a lady in the bar-scrum who asked me how old I was.  When I told her I was 39, one of my colleagues popped up from behind my back and screeched 'THIRTY NINE!  WOW!  You look AMAZING!'  Obviously, I'm always willing to be told loudly that I look amazing but what was with the emphasis on the 39?  I wasn't aware that it was possibly NOT to look okay at 39.  This is still on the correct side of 40 right?

I had a real laugh but when at 11.15pm everybody stopped sitting down and chatting and started bobbing about behind their chairs and muttering about going dancing, I decided my time had come to exit stage left.  I was relatively sober, (due to the ridiculous wait at the bar), and happily began to wave the kids off in the direction of somewhere noisier and more dancey,  At this point however, the maybe-a-little-bit-worse-for-wear birthday boy decided that his evening couldn't possibly continue without me in it so he sent the girls off dancing and we put the world to rights over a few double gins in a variety of pubs before I dumped him with the dancing queens and legged it into a cab about 12.30.  Home at a sensible time to see my husband; but the worrying part of this story is that I sat down with him and had a chat over a cup of decaffeinated tea and a pain au chocolat.  Could I get any more middle class and middle aged?!

Let's assume that was breakfast then, as I was back on form today with the first thing to pass my lips being champagne at midday.  That's more like it.  I met my Uni pal Clare in Hammersmith for my second viewing of 'Things I Know to be True'.  Clare always looks fabulous.  She works for the London College of Fashion and I swear she knows what the next fashion is before the designers have even begun to design it.  I remember Lyns and I howling with laughter over dinner with her about three years ago, when she referred to her (perfectly nice) trousers as 'tailored joggers'.  We thought it the most hilarious oxymoron until a couple of months later we found that they were everywhere. That girl knows.  So today she turns up in a pair of amazing blue culottes.  If I put culottes on I would look about 85, or that I was back in 1985, one of the two.  However, Clare rocked the look, beautifully. So beautifully in fact that the elderly (yet very stylish) lady on the table next to us came over and told her how fabulous she looked and how amazing her style was.  How kind. The sting in the tail was that immediately afterwards she asked to move tables as we were so noisy...  When Clare, Lyns and I are together, I immediately feel 21 again.  I was thinking on the train on the way home though that the lady that paid Clare a compliment would probably have been about our age now when the three of us first met at Uni... Scary stuff.

I'm looking forward to turning 40.  If only for the amount of lovely champagne I will be given.  I'm not looking forward to turning 50 however.  That seems ridiculously scary. Would I have coped with the thought of turning 40 a few months before my 30th birthday though?  There was a poignant line in the play today where the female protagonist tells her 63 year old husband that there is less in front of them than there is behind them but that doesn't mean that they should give up on living. Unsurprisingly, that didn't seem to cheer him very much...

I pray that I never lose my sense of fun.  There was a moment last night when I slightly lost my footing and my colleague gallantly threw himself to the ground to ensure that if I was face down in the street he was most definitely going to be face down with me to make me feel better about the situation.  I was laughing so hard at this that it took me much longer than it should have done to recover my footing and return to a vertical position.

Anyway, I've been out all day today and it is nearly ten o'clock so I reckon it is time for me to head to my bed with a cup of tea and a bourbon.  Or will I?  Maybe it is time to recreate the days of getting out of pyjamas and into gladrags at 10pm instead to head out out?

Maybe not.  Night night.  :-)

Runaway

Zak left home for the first time yesterday.  It was about an ice cream.  An ice cream that he wasn't bought in the park as he had already had some popcorn and sweets at the cinema. The lack of ice cream led to some behaviour that resulted in his IPad evening slot being removed from him.  This resulted in him leaving home.

I was warned.  All the way back from the park he was telling me that he was leaving home. I told him that he most definitely wasn't, whilst keeping cool, calm and collected.  I was smugly planning on just quietly double locking the door when we got inside.  I was double bluffed however as I stopped the car on the drive and Zak leapt out and legged it down the road! Still wanting to play it cool, I kept unpacking the car and Sebi monitored events from the end of the drive.  Sebi seemed a little disappointed at his progress as I think he expected something more dramatic than his big brother loitering a few houses down. When you're gone you're gone however in Seb's eyes, and as I was moving Zak's scooter from the garage to the house, Sebi enquired as to why I was bothering because Zak wouldn't need it any longer if he wasn't here.  I'm surprised he hadn't moved his stuff into Zak's room and claimed squatter's rights within minutes.  On his next recky from the end of the drive, little brother was slightly more impressed with big brother's progress and fed back that he was now out of sight.  Oh.  Oops.  I'd wrongly assumed that he would loiter down the road and head back when I wasn't looking.  Triple bluffed.

Unfortunately at this precise moment my husband decided to return home.  I thought he made the enquiry in a much more reasonable manner than I would have done had the tables been reversed, about why he had just seen his nine-year old son on his own heading away from home along Ardens Way.

I must pause here and take a minute to explain the hierarchy in our house.  Seb's in charge and the rest of us do as he says.  No, only joking, (sort of).  I am the strict, disciplinarian parent; the boys are the kids and Stuart falls somewhere in between.  I'm not doing him a disservice by saying this - he would be in complete agreement.  He spends hours being silly with the boys: wrestling, football, computer games, making up comedy rhymes about fat people etc, etc; none of which I have any interest in at all.  The boys have the most amazing fun with him but unfortunately that has led to a slightly grey area when it comes to him being able to discipline them.  Quite often he will come to me if something really needs sorting out.  Stu = fun Dad.  Nikki = fun-spoiler Mum.

I think therefore, when Stu found me on the drive with one son having lost the other one and I didn't seem in that particular moment to be doing that much about it, he relished his rapid promotion through the sensible parenting ranks...

Stu and Sebi went inside and I began backing the car out of the drive, tail between my legs, with no particular Plan B about how I was going to actually get Zak to get into the car when I found him.  Halfway out of the drive I noticed a blue cap peeking out from behind a tree.  Slowly I returned the car to the drive, went into the house and waited for the return of the fugitive.

At this point I am pleased to say that the super-early pre-teen behaviour seemed to bury itself again for another day and the rest of the afternoon was passed in a relatively amicable truce.  We're off to the park again in a bit; I reckon I might just buy some ice creams today...

Summer Lovin'

Summer holidays are odd.  As a teacher you spend the ENTIRE year hanging out for this six week break and then it seems to be over in a flash.  I almost take the fun out of the summer holidays but being obsessed by the fact I should be enjoying every single little minute of them.  I counsel myself as we go through, after a week by saying, 'well, I've still got five weeks to go' - FIVE WEEKS!  Halfway through I'm equally as buoyant, and then we get to now; two weeks to go, and you realise that you are nearer the end than the beginning.  I comfort myself at the point by saying it is basically like starting an Easter or Christmas break now and look at all the time I've had already.  Next weekend I'll be convincing myself it is like the start of a half term and all the while I have a slightly suppressed, unusual sensation that when work starts again, I might quite like it.  (Oops - I've said it aloud now.)

We really are making the most of these holidays but I think I got a little bit overexcited and may have packed too much in.  Our suitcases were unpacked last weekend from France and repacked for Suffolk with a day at Warner Bros. Studios squeezed in the middle. We're back today from Suffolk and although a lovely time was had; the constant high of excitement from the kids resulted in slightly less-than-perfect behaviour between 4am and 5.15am this morning.  (I should have stuck to my resolute guns about not letting them share a room!)  We are all officially knackered.  I wonder if this is full-time-working-mother-guilt rearing her ugly head again?  Everybody says to me that teaching is so perfect when you have small kids because you can really re-group in the holidays.  It's true!  I have spent so much quality time with my lovelies in the last four weeks that I've completely remembered why I decided to work full time! ;-)  I'm kidding.  Sort of.

Yet still I can't seem to stop: Wicked tomorrow, Gullivers on Monday, Whipsnade on Tuesday - so much to do and it is imperative that we must all have fun at all times.  In fact, all you end up with is spoilt brats that moan when they have to fill an hour or two of their own time at home with a house and garden full of toys.  'But I'M BORED...' laments Zachary when I have dared to remove an IPad away from his trance-like gaze.

The added problem is that the no alcohol in the week situation really doesn't seem to apply to school holidays.  I'm a miserable bastard during term time so school holidays is when I get to do a huge amount of socialising.  Dinner on a Monday night?  Sure, why not?  Wine tasting on a Wednesday?  Brilliant - bring it on.  The only problem is that if you remember correctly my alcohol intake is meant to be vaguely limited at the moment and I'm currently trying to schedule in my next blood test when I will have had at least 48 hours off the sauce.  September 6th it is then!

I also reckon that I have spent approximately ten hundred million pounds in the last four weeks having so much fun.  I feel a few days of £1.50 morning cinema tickets (because who wants to eat popcorn at 10am?!) and laps of the park on scooters coming on to ensure there is enough money left in the bank to pickle my liver in cheap champers before it is head down again until half term.  Happy holidays everyone!  :-)

Half Term High Jinks

I do love a half-term.  The week started beautifully with a visit from my lovely work colleague Sophie, who is currently on maternity leave.  She has three little girls that I instructed my boys to look after.  Zak asked me their names just before they came.

'Mia is the oldest, then Orla and then... *Big fat pause* ...the baby.'  

Not to be put off by my lack of attention to detail Zak pursued this with:

'I'm sure she didn't just call her 'baby'.'

No Zak, no she didn't but Mummy has forgotten the poor child's name, okay?!  I responded with:

'I think it is something Greek, Cassandra?  No, that's not it.  Oh well never mind, I'm sure we'll find out over the course of the morning.'

Sophie hadn't even got through the door before Zak yelled from the top of the stairs:

'Mummy can't remember what you called your baby.'  Great.  Welcome.  (It's Juno by the way which is most definitely more Roman than Greek.)

That afternoon we took a trip to the cinema for them to watch 'Angry Birds the Movie' and for me to have a little nap.  This is definitely the onset of old age but ticked all boxes.  The kids were entertained, we were out of the house allowing Stu to work without chaos around him and I was indulging in my favourite past time.  Well my favourite past time when there aren't any open bottles of champers around anyway.

Wednesday I had to go to Chelsea for my eye appointment.  (All good news - meds are working - I'm back in contacts.)  I decided to combine this with a day out with the boys and booked lunch after at our favourite restaurant, Heddon Street Kitchen.  Zak was disappointed that my Professor didn't have crazy white hair and that he wasn't mad, but he warmed to him after he let them look at the back of my eyeball.  I wasn't quite as keen on them 'helping' when the Professor said to Sebi: 'Don't drop that will you?  It's worth 6 and a half grand.'  Maybe he was mad after all...

Having refused to go to the loo at the hospital, Sebi started clutching his willy at Sloane Square tube station, which I'm sure is not the done thing at all in that neck of the woods. The furious willy grabbing and hopping from one foot to another became rather frantic by Oxford Circus so I decided we needed an urgent pit stop before we got to the restaurant. Like an Oasis I saw a public pay-as-you-go portaloo on Regent Street.  I was just scrabbling for my 50p (50P4APEE!!) when I was approached by a friendly local drunk who told me I didn't need that and let me in with his key...  (Who gave him the key...?!)  I was hurriedly grateful and went in and Seb plonked himself on the toilet.  I (STUPIDLY) left Zak in charge of the electronic door and he pressed the button to shut and lock it and then pressed every other button so soon it opened again; permanently.  Apparently Sebi was not as yet finished so was now sitting in his glory in the middle of Regent Street.  I was busy bollocking Zak when my new tramp friend came back to tell me we needed to exit as the thing was about to self-disinfect.  Cue Sebi: 'But I TOLD you, I HAVEN'T FINISHED'. I'll gloss over the next few unpleasant minutes and 15 minutes later we were ensconced in the restaurant, obviously via another toilet en route.

The ice cream bar in this restaurant has to be seen to be believed.  One small scoop of ice cream in a bowl with ten thousand jars of sprinkles and sweets for the kids to help themselves to.  I think I got to Zak each time before he put a serving spoon full of sweets straight into his gob but I'm not completely sure.  Safe to say you couldn't see any ice cream on their plates by the time they had finished loading.  Two deliriously happy, sugar high boys charged around Hamley's and then their distinctly-less-wealthy-than-the-start-of-the-day Mother decided it was time to head home.

On the second traumatic tube journey of the day, Zak decided he was about to puke within about 20 seconds.  I'm normally a big fan of anti terror measures on the tube but I really could have done with a bin that afternoon.  There was no way in the world he was puking into my Ted Baker handbag (it's all about the lining!) so he managed to hold it in.  I think he was just a bit hot and full of sweets but was still a distinctly odd colour by the time we got on the train home.  'Air' started escaping from the other end to ease his sore tummy and even with me subtly opening windows we managed to clear a whole French family and their suitcases from our carriage.  I think I've now learnt how to say 'disgusting smelly English boys' in French now, should I ever happen to need it...

I had an amazing PT session with my friend Elena in the park yesterday.  She obviously chose the bandstand to do it in so that we were literally centre stage.  All of our boys took great delight in swinging high enough so they could see me over the hedge and hurl abuse at my efforts.

'YOU...*swing*...LOOK...*swing*...LIKE...*swing*...A...*swing*...DOG' sang my eldest. Personally I haven't met a dog that can plank with its feet in stirrups but I obviously need to get out more.